The True Bees 



The sharp-tongued burrowing bees form a very large group, 

 with many common species which fly actively through the sum- 

 mer. The cells as a rule are made in burrows or tunnels in the 

 ground or in hard clay banks. Andrena "vicina, according to Em- 

 erton, digs a straight tunnel into the ground for a depth of several 

 inches or more with short oblique galleries branching off from it. 

 The earthen cells lined with mucus are filled with pollen and 

 honey. This is all done in the latter part of April and early in 

 May. The larvae are full grown in less than five weeks, and the 

 adult bees issue all through July and August. To this group be- 

 long the beautiful little bees of the genus Halictus, which are 

 often metallic in color. They dig branched tunnels to a depth of 

 from six to ten inches and are semi-gregarious in habit, a great 

 many of the burrows often being found close together. Emerton 

 has studied the habits of H. parallelus, and states that this bee 

 has two generations each year. 



The blunt-tongued burrowing bees live much like those bees 

 which we have just mentioned, constructing their burrows in hard 

 clay soil or in the cracks in stone walls, but the bees of the allied 

 Tamily Prosopidae which have been called by Ashmead the 

 obtuse-tongued carpenter bees, burrow into the twigs of bramble, 

 elder and other shrubs, in which after extracting the pith, they 

 construct their cells filled with pollen and honey. The Prosopi- 

 dae used to be considered parasitic, but the English observer, 

 Frederick Smith, discovered their true habits a good many years 

 ago. Mr. R. C. L. Perkins has recently stated, however, that 

 some of the Hawaiian bees belonging to his genus Neoprosopis 

 are genuine parasites. 



Life History of a Bumblebee 



(Bombus fervidus Fabr.^ 



In our generalization on the habits of the true bees we said 

 little about the bumblebees, preferring to let this typical life 

 history speak for itself. The bumblebees belong to the group of 

 social bees, although their communities are by no means as large 

 or as perfect as those of the domesticated honey bee, nor in fact 

 is the differentiation of the worker class so marked as with the 

 honey bee. The workers, in fact, more nearly resemble the 



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